Kayleigh’s Homeschool GED Success Story tells of the inspiring achievements of a child home educated from birth, using an eclectic approach.
Kayleigh is the third child, in a home educating family with six children – a middle child, who works hard and gets on with life quietly.
Her family follows an eclectic approach to home education, using a variety of curriculum products, which are created specifically for home education. The children each work at their own level in Maths and Languages, progressing at their own pace as they master each new skill or each new lesson. Other subjects they learn together with their siblings, close in age. Read their homeschool recipe for success!
At about age 6, Kayleigh took up ballet, modern dancing and at about age 8 she started gymnastics, which she took very seriously. From a young age she showed artistic talent too. She loved drawing and by age 3, she coloured in better than her older siblings. In her early teens, she had one year of art classes with an art teacher and she says those classes refined and advanced her skills and passion for art. She then found some photography, drawing and painting classes online and continued to develop her skills on her own.
Kayleigh’s gymnastics soon escalated to being highly competitive. She participated in district, provincial and national championships every year, until the end of her high school years. In 2016, at age 14, she represented South Africa for double-mini trampoline at the international Region 6 competition in Zimbabwe and she ended her gymnastics ‘career’ by winning the gold medal for women’s artistic gymnastics in her age category in 2018.
One of many lessons that competitive sport teaches children is to train hard to achieve their goals.
During her teen years, she also took over an online curriculum supply business, South African Homeschool Suppliers, which her older sister had started some years previously. In 2018, she sold this business to another home educating family and it is still going!
In 2019, Kayleigh completed her GED and then after multiple test cancellations due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, she completed the SAT, late in 2020.
With the combination of the GED and SAT plus a portfolio of her art work, Kayleigh was accepted to study a degree in Visual Communication at Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand, starting in 2022. She achieved five A’s and one B in her first year, while also working part-time as a gymnastics coach at one of Auckland’s largest gymnastics clubs and doing graphic design work on a part-time basis.
Click here for more GED Success Stories and here to find out Where Do GED Graduates Study?